Oil and gas reservoirs need to be optimally managed for economic, physical, political, and environmental reasons. Creating a reservoir model assists management by analysis of reservoir behavior and forecasting production forecast. Thus, the quality of the reservoir model—i.e., the degree to which it represents the actual reservoir—directly affects reservoir management.

During the lifetime of a field, a wealth of data becomes available and is used to constrain the reservoir model. In the exploration phase, the reservoir model is constructed using 3D seismic data, geologic knowledge of the surrounding area, and log/core measurements from a few exploration wells. This input is...